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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

#Dialogue, Y'all - by Sandra Nachlinger

One of the things I enjoy most
about writing is creating dialogue, because it can be a lot of fun to put words into a
character’s mouth! In writing I.O.U. SEX, my co-author and I had a great time with Peggy,
a Baby Boomer with a strong Southern accent who loved Southern sayings. During
Peggy’s creation, we searched our memories for truisms we’d heard over the
years and we looked online, too, to find just the right thing for Peg to say.
Here are a few gems we came up with.

In one scene
Peggy admitted: I feel older than dirt
and ugly as homemade sin. In another, she remembered that even a blind hog can find an acorn once in a
while. She reminded herself to be careful: Don’t squat on your spurs. In a
particularly tense scene, Peggy confessed that she felt as jumpy as a skillet full of fleas.

We called these “Peggy-isms,” and we both felt that they
told a lot about the character’s personality and added color to the story.
Besides, coming up with all those sayings was just plain fun!

Do you have any favorite sayings? I found myself muttering,
“Six of one; half dozen of the other” recently, and “It’ll all come out in the
wash” is one of my favorites. Maybe Peggy’s clichés have had an effect on me!

I had a friend from SW Virginia. She'd say things like, "colder than a frog's belly." I don't remember ever touching a frog's belly to find out if it were cold or not, but I thought it was a funny saying. It tickled my funny bone.

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